How to share an email conversation by link

Share a conversation

1. In the webmail, open any message of the conversation.
2. Choose More above the message (or press m), then Share by link. You can also press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux) and type “share”.
3. Next to Link works for, pick 1 day, 7 days, 30 days or until I stop it. 7 days is preselected.
4. Choose Create link, then Copy (or press y), and paste the link wherever you need it: a chat, a ticket, another email.

The link covers the whole conversation, the messages you received and your replies, wherever they are filed, up to 100 messages. It’s a snapshot: replies that come later aren’t added. To share those too, make a new link.

What the other person sees

They open the link in any browser, with no account and no sign-in. The page is titled Shared conversation: the subject, the number of messages and how long the link works, then each message with its attachments, ready to download.

A few things are left out on purpose:

• Bcc recipients are never shown, not even on the messages you sent.
• Remote images stay off, so opening the link doesn’t report to the senders’ trackers.
• Search engines don’t index the page. Only people who have the link can find it.

Anyone with the link can read the conversation, so share it as carefully as the messages themselves.

Stop sharing

You can stop a link whenever you like, and it stops working at once. Whoever opens it next reads “This link has expired or was stopped.”

• From the conversation: open More → Share by link again. Under Links to this conversation, each live link shows until when it works and how many views it has had, with Copy and Stop sharing.
• All your links in one place: open Settings → Accesses and scroll down to Conversations shared by link. Each one is listed with its subject, its end date and its views, and the same two buttons.

Deleting the messages doesn’t stop a link: what you shared stays readable until the link expires or you stop it. Use Stop sharing for that.

The limits

• Up to 100 messages per link.
• 1, 7 or 30 days, or until you stop it.
• 500 live links at once. When you reach that, stop some, or wait until they expire.

What you can’t do yet

• Share mail from a shared mailbox. Only your own mail can be shared by link. In a shared mailbox, or one someone delegated to you, the option isn’t there: forward the messages instead.
• Add later replies to a link. A link stays as it was when you made it. Make a new one to share what came after.

If several people need to follow a conversation as it goes on, a shared mailbox suits that better than a link.